Monday, February 23, 2015

About a week ago we started printmaking, and haven't been able to stop! My kids have started looking everywhere for new ways to makes prints!! So far we have used muffin tins and rollers, and Busy has started a "mental note" about the ways she can make other prints. At the top of her list was some bubble wrap that came in a package the other day, so we set it up and got to work. Now that we have started to dig deeper into the printmaking process, the kids can set up the activity on their own :) I went to get more paper and when I returned, they had set out the paint, brushes, trays and bubble wrap. "Let's do this!" <3

What You Need:

- paint

- brushes

- paper

- bubble wrap (we used the large bubble sheets

but the small bubbles would be great to try as well)

What To Do:

1. Using the brushes (or your fingers) paint on each bubble

2. Once the bubbles you want painted are painted, press the

paper on the bubbles.

3. Lift the paper and voila!

**4. Busy and The Beans both decided to only paint

on a select number of bubbles in the hopes to create a "kind of pattern."

Then once they pulled up their paper, I helped rotate the paper and

press it back down to "reprint" on the paper's other half.

As they started painting on the bubbles, I was reminded of a painting project on bubble wrap we did a while back. We painted on the bubbles with the sole purpose of hanging it in the window to see the light come through. As I was looking back at that post, I remembered reading a comment wondering if you could make prints with the paint on the bubbles. Turns out, you can :)

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Man, oh man, this winter just keeps coming! We spent some of last week stuck inside with temps getting down below 0. And with the high tomorrow at a cool 18 degrees, it seems the snow will stay put a little longer. So today we suited up and headed out to paint...

What You Need:

- Liquid water colors

- spray bottles (we keep these on hand from the dollar store)

- snow

(if you don't have liquid water colors, you can color water with

food coloring or water down regular paint and fill the spray bottles)

What To Do: (this is so easy!!)

1. Fill the spray bottles with water colors.

2. Spray the snow.

Yep. That's it. Now go and have fun!!

The spray bottle with the purple wasn't working properly,but Busy liked the drippy effect it made.

Extension Activities:

- You could turn this into a color mixing lesson by spraying with red, yellow and blue.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

You may remember my addiction to my laminator. Well, my addiction has rubbed off on my daughter in the biggest way! She wants to laminate EVERYTHING! If she is particularly proud of an art project, she will laminate it. If she writes a great story, she laminates it. Heck! If she finds a piece of paper, she wants to laminate it! (which prompted a quick math lesson on the expenses of laminating sheets ;) I was printing some pictures from Instagram for our magnetic wall, when Busy asked if she could laminate some of the photos. Then I got this idea...

What You Need:

- a laminated picture of yourself

- dry erase markers

That's it!

What To Do:

1. print off a picture of your child

2. If you have a laminator (which oddly enough, I suggest) great! If not, you can get it laminated for cheap at an office store or use a clear pocket binder sheets (the ones you used in college for portfolios or presentation binders.)

3. Use dry erase markers to draw on the laminated photos. Encourage them to be silly and creative!!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

I told you to check back for more print making ideas and here you are!! Thanks for that :) This time we made our own rollers with puffy stickers and paper tubes. The kids loved this process!

What You Need:

- empty paper towel or toilet paper roll

- 3D stickers (the puffy kind that sticks up off the paper)

- paint and a tray

- paper long enough to roll the print (if you don't have long paper,

tape some pieces together)

What To Do:

1. Peel the stickers and stick them on the paper towel roll (fine motor...check)

2. This step could happen one of two ways. Busy decided that she wanted to use a paint brush

to paint the stickers one by one. "Doing it this way, I can control the color and amount of paint that goes on each sticker."

2. Beansie decided to roll the roller in the paint. "I saw my friend, Georgia, do it this way when we painted like this at school." I love that they have done this at school!! He wanted a "brownish" color.

3. When the stickers are covered in paint, roll the roller on the long paper, making prints.

We talked about the similarities and differences between the two prints and at the

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

My kids LOVE mirror play! We paint on mirrors, write with dry erase markers, build with LEGOS and blocks, write in shaving cream, stack stones, trace self portraits and tons of other things. Today we were playing with glass beads on the mirror and the Beans started trying to make his name using the beads. Busy tried helping him and she actually came up with the idea of writing the letters in his name on paper squares to help him with the letter shapes! So I wrote them out and he used the beads to trace the written letters. What's great, is that throughout the day, he kept going back to try again ;)

Then Lollie wrote out 'Mommy' herself andhad Beansie trace those as well :)

If you don't have glass beads you can use rocks, cheerios, macaroni or really anything that can be used to trace the written letters. And along with reinforcing letter shapes and recognition, (all literacy related) this activity is also great for fine motor development and language.